[ The One Night Stand - Lit. Walk-in ]

[Vxce]

It isn't terribly long before Maeve is emerging from the room upstairs. She has cleaned up, more or less. Her clothes are still dusty and well worn, but her arm looks surprisingly normal. Nobody has burst through the door after her, and by her body language she must be of the belief that they will not be coming, not now anyway.

She saunters over to the bar with a pack of cigarettes in hand, tapping their lid against her palm with a tap tap tap and looking around the bar as if she's seeing it for the first time. Her eyes land on the bartender who had assisted her before and she offers a weak smile, nodding towards her arm.

"I suppose this is the part where I say you should have seen the other guy..."

Maeve bites her lip a little, pausing.

"Gal, in this case though."

She clears her throat, looking down at the cigarettes.

"I didn't want to smoke up there, not without asking, ya know..."

She lifts her finger and does a "roundabout" gesture to the room in general.

"If it's cool."


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[ Character Image Refs ]

We Could Be Villains

[We Could Be Villains]

Errol Capland

When the woman returned to the bar, she looked the opposite of how she had entered; in one piece and relatively clean.

Errol exhaled a long breath she hadn't known she had been holding and gestured for Maeve to take a seat. "Spooky sorts tend to patch up fast, but I was worried about you. You don't seem terribly spooky. Future-y, maybe, but nothing storybook." Shifting to bend at her knees, the bartender grabbed an ashtray and placed it gently down. Dragging her vermillion hues up and down the once damaged arm, she assessed it to the best of her ability before continuing with, "This place gets all kinds of creepy crawlies. Hellspawn, Dream Walkers, Night Stalkers. You name it."

Finding herself at a pause, Errol scanned the entry one last time, then turned her back so she could grab a clean glass.

"I have no doubt you put up a good fight. You can tell me about it if you'd like, or you could just have a drink and chill out for a bit." Idling with the glass, she peeked back to the stranger with a lopsided smile. "I'm Errol. What'll you have?"

Viice

[Vxce]

Maeve is relieved to see the ashtray, and she peels the plastic from the carton with a small smile, flicking it's lid open with her thumb.

She feels the bartender looking at her arm critically as she lights the cigarette with a silver zippo from her breast pocket, snapping it shut like it's the punctuation of her satisfaction.

"The short version is that uh...my best friend turned against me and tried to tear me apart."

She tilts her head as if her neck is suddenly bothering her with that statement, smoke swirling from her nostrils.

Her gaze lifting from the ash tray to the selection of drinks behind the bar.

"Spiced rum is fine, on ice. I appreciate the sentiment...I'm Maeve. I really appreciate you taking me in even though I was not the ideal customer. I promise I put enough distance between her and myself that I'm convinced she isn't going to find me until I want her to..."



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[ Character Image Refs ]

We Could Be Villains

[We Could Be Villains]

Errol Capland

"Why?"

Busied by the request for spiced rum, Errol didn't think twice to prod a bit at the punchline. "There has to be a reason she would go from your best friend to a would-be-killer, right?" Producing an aged bottle from the top shelf, it's label peeling and it's color closest to true amber, the albino poured a healthy portion of liquor into Maeve's glass. Snatching a few ice cubes from the compact freezer beneath the bar, she added those as an afterthought. "I wouldn't worry too much over her showing up. This place has a tendency to oust unruly occupants."

Patting the countertop, she went on to explain, "I'm not an expert in magical matters, which I assure you exist, and I inherited this place by accident, but..." a pause. "The bar decides the degrees of violence allowed within it."

Viice

[Vxce]

Maeve looks around, somewhat intrigued by her fortune in landing somewhere like this.

"So...a sanctuary then? Lucky me..."

She watches as her drink is made, and thinks how best to answer the Why question before settling on the truth.

"Someone reprogrammed her. She may not even remember who I am..."

Maeve ashes her cigarette, obviously bothered by the possibility of this.

"We're a long way from home...but where we're from, prisons are used for experimentation. Her and I got into some trouble together, and as a result we were thrown into one of these projects they do, body modification. Enhancement of the human form...they talked about it like it was our contribution back into society for being effing degenerates, right. Jesus...really shouldn't even be telling you any of this."

She pauses to take a long drink of that rum and shakes her head as the glass comes down onto the table.

"Forget how [********] all of that was, we got out. We took a ship, we went as far as we freaking could and we ended up here....wherever this even is....and then suddenly she turns on me. She goes all...soldier on me."

Her voice trembles a little.

"I think they bugged her, I think they were in her brain."

Maeve presses her palm to her own forehead, cigarette still between her fingers, and suddenly closes her eyes, obviously distressed and sad, her brow furrowing.

"I don't think they got that far with me...I mean, s**t, how would I even know heh..."

Her laugh is somewhat defeated. She takes another drink, somewhat regaining her composure.

"But no doubt in my mind they want to destroy us both. If I was them...I'd use her to destroy me...and then have her destroy herself...that'd be the way to do it."

When she looks down again, her drink is gone.

"Heh..no kidding. Can I get another one....or twelve..."

___________________________________________________________________

[ Character Image Refs ]

We Could Be Villains

[We Could Be Villains]

Errol Capland

Chewing on the information she was given, the bartender wrangled the stray stool kept behind the bar and seated herself.

At times, she would nod, though her expression was one of confusion most times. Eventually, as the story winded down, Errol released a small sigh and did her best not to sound dour when replying with, "It sounds like you're in all sorts of problems. I can't say I have any answers for you, but like you said, you got lucky and that's a big deal. The bar is the closest you'll get to a safe haven on this side of town. Maybe anywhere in the city, if I'm honest, given your circumstances. Who would you even go to?"

Pondering her own question as she poured both herself and Maeve another drink, Errol finally asked, "Do you think there's a way to fix your friend? A way to take what they put into her head out? I don't know many people up to date with tech things, but if you both were worked on by the same organization - this prison system you mentioned - do you have the knowledge... you know, stored in you?"

Viice

[Vxce]

Maeve lingers a bit on these questions, taking a swig of her rum the moment more of it is provided to her.

"From what I can tell the crew she and I used to roll with when we got into trouble have been more or less wiped out...or gone into hiding. We went back to our old base and our stuff was still there, stuff only we would care about."

A smile catches her lips just a tad, but it fades quickly.

"Maybe there is some code somewhere buried in my body but I wouldn't have a clue how to access it. They teach us how to repair ourselves, how to use what we're given, that's it..."

She looks at her own hand, opening it and closing her fingers into a fist.

"I don't know how to stop what's happening to her. There must be some kind of transmitter sending her instructions, something like that..."

Sighing, Maeve leans back and rubs her face.

"Christ I don't know. I just hope she isn't suffering..."

___________________________________________________________________

[ Character Image Refs ]

We Could Be Villains

[endless p r e l u d e]

▌│█║▌║▌║ He was the one to make her scream ║▌║▌║█│▌

Grubby toes peeked into the frame of this World's mind's eye as if a camera was slowly panning out to take in the full owner of those once clean, pink toes. Slowly she came into frame and with it, she came into existence. A girl, no older than sixteen materialized in the realm which was dubbed 'Gaia'. Her hair was long and ran past her bottom as if the strands were racing to see who would meet the girl's ankles first. It was actually the silhouette of a girl that had materialized into the space. Any distinct details were washed out by the blinding light that made up her existence. She was radiant, painfully so. Any passerby in those deserted streets would cringe, squeeze their eyes shut and probably trip over themselves. She was bright and all any mortal could make out would be the shape of her body. Something white in a matching hand-me-down summer dress.

Elina raised her delicate little chin. She had pristine skin but if one were to squint and really look at her, they notice that not everything was kept clean; her toes and her fingertips were black and dirtied, tarnishing the crisp clean look that she usually harbored. The girl with pale peach eyes blinked once at the sign that read 'One Night Stand'. It was the ruins that were etched along the doorway that had called to the ancient creature. What were they? What did they say? Elina reached out a grubby little hand and took a step towards the open door eventually wandering her way inside.

[We Could Be Villains]

Errol Capland

How Maeve was feeling, Errol could never know. Even the idea of a best friend seemed alien to the resident bartender, though, with some of the clientele the One Night Stand received, one might understand the woman's reasoning for keeping her distance. Crawlies and Spookies, as she lovingly referred to them, were a bit too much to keep up with under normal circumstances. Even now, she was speaking with someone from, presumably, outer space who had issues with her mechanized friend turned killer. What did Errol have to say to that?

Sometimes, she glanced from Maeve just to save herself from giving a dumb earth girl expression of blankness.

"For now, maybe it's best not to think about it. I know it's probably all you can think about, but..." Trailing off, she nursed some of her rum with numbness toward the liquor. "Eh. For now, all you can do is gather your resources and start planning what comes next. The bar can help you with some of the former. Food, drink, a place to sleep, peace. That much is available to you here. The rest... Uh, whether you want to keep running or if you plan to fight or if you wanna buy time to see if your friend is salvageable, you gotta figure that out. Use me as a sound post if you need, but I doubt any advice I can give you is gonna fit your situation."

Finding it difficult to articulate the rest of her assurances, Errol's sight stretched to the entryway of the tavern and watched as someone slowly made their way through the door. Snowy brows knit in question, her tone sharpening. "Are you looking for someone? You seem out of your element," though she said this only because the girl looked so young. Even whimsical safe havens tended to card their patronage.

Viice

endless p r e l u d e

[Vxce]

She was playing mind games with the inmates. The guards, too.

Now here she is, suspended in a glassy sphere like a giant trophy, a monument to the achievements of the modern prison system.

Her arms are held outstretched on either side of her and her legs are crossed beneath her, overgrown by a thick black mass that leaches out from the inner walls of the dome and pulls her taunt. She looks like a great crucifix, her body a great black cross. Her head is wilted forward and her glossy eyes are stuck wide open. Vacant.

Her jaw hangs like it's on a broken hinge. Cold drool strings from her bared teeth and split open lips, frozen in a final scream of denial.

The thick black spines that sprouted from her back are distended, reaching out all around her like crooked spiders legs, their barbed ends stuck deep into the black trunks that hold her up. It's a vicious snapshot of her last fighting moments, her struggle to stop it all before they shut her body down by turning her mind up

and up

and up

until it was what imprisoned her.

She hangs there as the alarms sound and the strobe lights flash, throwing her warped shadow against the red wall behind her, the dome containment fighting to cancel out the noise....but she hears it.

Electricity jumps, riding the wires that line this room in tangled clusters.

Oh yes, she hears it like a war drum.

Her other senses flood forth, riding the wave of returning sound

blooming,

erupting,

devastating her.

That frozen scream manifests, at last.

It tears open her throat and carries over the booming alarms with such ferocity, such weight, that the glass dome around her swells to contain it -- until a fissure breaks down it's center and disperses, branching out in every direction.

Threatening to hatch her back into the world.

Freedom.

She can hardly fathom it.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

She stares down at him for a long time, he's just laying there laughing as the guards circle them to trap her again and hang her back up on that cross...but she's free now.

The extended spikes in her back help pull her up like 8 jagged legs, ripping from their own respective prisons. Their barbed ends thrust into the cement floor as they grow impossibly long, raising her up until her feet leave the ground and dangle beneath her, delicate and white. She stares these men down, sees them all at once with her enhanced eyes...like so many flies in her web.

"PRISONER."

The guard directly in front of her stands firm even while the pea shooter in his grasp trembles. He's got a lot of sand to call her that while she looms over him,

her fingers curling in,

enraged.


"WE ORDER YOU TO ST...TO STAND DOWN!"

SSSSHINK

"Hggrrhhgll..."

He sputters, his eyes bulging as he looks down at the spiked metal appendage that she's thrusted into his stomach without so much as a waver of warning. The other two guards become suddenly animated, one of them turns to run and the other starts shooting at her with a panicked cry, but she's moving, and she's fast, her spines are lifting her up to latch onto a nearby wall with her actual arms and legs so that they may be free to do her bidding. She doesn't take them one at a time, but all at once. And there's plenty of her to go around.

The first guard, impaled and seizing up with shock, is being pumped with black, acidic fluid that liquefies his insides. He's screaming that it's hot, that it burns, that he can't take it as he claws uselessly at the black mass that's invaded him...but it's much too late. He's the first to go limp and the first to be cast aside.

Meanwhile the guard with the gun has it stolen from him by another black, snaking extremity stemming out from her back, and he finds the muzzle buried in his mouth just before the trigger is pulled. His eyes roll into the back of his head as his brains spray the wall behind him and he slides down to the floor with a thud. The black metal limb tosses the gun and dives into the cavity of his hung open mouth, digging for the start of his intestinal tract and tearing it out only to drag it to the final guard.

He's assaulted by another one of her spines, stabbed clear through the thigh and pinned to the ground, and he screams and screams as she brings the slippery, still-warm intestines of his friend around his throat and strangles him with them. She retracts the barbed spine from his leg with a sickening tear only to allow her to lift him by the makeshift meat-noose, slinging it over the piping above and pulling until he hangs, kicking...gurgling...dying...

And within moments of one another, they're all dead.

She lowers herself slowly from the wall she'd been perched on. The bloodstained appendages retract to become nothing more than spines sticking out of her back, waiting for her next command. She walks through the massacre that sits between herself and the exit, snowy feet becoming stained by the spreading pools of blood. She touches the foot of the hanging guard in passing.

She spins his corpse like an ornament, smiling her doll-like smile.

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[ OOC ]: Just some backstory about the monster that got out, not Maeve's friend but a bigger baddie who is responsible for the prison break.

If anyone's interested in plotting hit me up.

[endless p r e l u d e]

▌│█║▌║▌║ He was the one to make her scream ║▌║▌║█│▌

Those pale peach eyes were glued to the ruins that were etched along the doorway. Dirty fingers spread when she noticed that there were more ancient ruin. So much more! Elina scanned the old dusting bar, without really seeing the details or the patrons inside. She slowly dropped her hand to her side, the soot that had tainted her fingertips stained some of her dress with the action. The girl looked over to the voice that called to her. Her mind felt like an old school radio knob, one that she was constantly seeking through, trying to find the right language. Once she had tuned into the right station, she had only caught the last of whatever the albino was saying. "out of your element." any turn of phrase was foreign to her, so all Elina did was stare at her. The two females finally stabilized and painted themselves into the frame. She took in their clothing, their mannerisms and then the drinks that they held greedily to their chests.

After a quick assessment Elina opened her pretty mouth and then let out a sound. No. It wasn't a sound.. it was a screech.